In April, China and global anti-doping agencies vigorously defended the decision to allow 23 of China’s elite swimmers to compete in the 2021 Games after it was revealed that they had tested positive for banned substances in the months leading up to the last Summer Games. He insisted that he did not take doping drugs.
But at the time they made these claims, both China and anti-doping agencies were reportedly aware that three of the 23 swimmers had tested positive for another performance-enhancing drug several years earlier and had In the case, he also escaped the punishment of disclosure of identity and suspension.
In both cases, China claimed the swimmers had inadvertently ingested banned substances, an explanation viewed with considerable skepticism by some anti-doping experts. The two incidents heightened long-standing suspicions among rival athletes about China’s doping patterns and the unwillingness or inability of global authority World Anti-Doping Agency to deal with the issue.
It was revealed that the three Chinese athletes who tested positive back in 2016 and 2017 were no ordinary swimmers: two of them won gold medals at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, and the third is now a world record holder. The trio are expected to compete for medals again at the Paris Olympics in July.
Anti-doping experts say if Chinese officials and WADA had followed existing rules in the event of both sets of positive tests, the athletes’ identities would have been made public and subject to further scrutiny and could have been removed from the 2021 Games. Olympics and qualifying for the opening Olympics in Paris next month.
“The athletes we spoke to are appalled by the anti-doping system and WADA,” said Rob Koehler, director general of Global Athletes, an organization dedicated to athletes’ rights. “Athletes should strictly adhere to anti-doping rules, but the organizations holding them accountable do not have to.”
The World Anti-Doping Agency confirmed in a statement to the New York Times that the three Chinese swimmers tested positive for “trace amounts” of the banned steroid clenbuterol. It blamed cases in 2016 and 2017 on food contamination, which it labeled “pervasive”. It emailed The Times and posted a lengthy response online.
“The problem of contamination is real and well known in the anti-doping community,” said Olivier Niggli, director general of the World Anti-Doping Agency.
“The athletes involved are three such cases,” he added. “They are elite-level swimmers who are frequently tested in a country where meat contamination is widespread, so it is not surprising that they may be among hundreds of athletes who have also tested positive for trace amounts of the substance. .
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) said the levels of clenbuterol in athletes were “very low, six to 50 times below the minimum reported levels”. But neither the agency nor Niggley offered any explanation for why there was no public confirmation that any substance was in the swimmers’ systems.
Global swimming governing body World Aquatics also confirmed on Friday that three Chinese swimmers had previously tested positive for clenbuterol.
“We can confirm that in 2016 and 2017, Chinese athletes tested positive for clenbuterol,” the organization, formerly known as FINA, said in its archives. Its management team’s record of positive tests over different periods of time.
“If there is any information to suggest that these cases should be handled differently, then of course we will look at it very carefully,” the organization said, adding that it expected to provide further information in the coming weeks, including “about how it will be handled in the future.” Clear guidelines for similar cases”.
Details of the positive tests in 2016 and 2017 were contained in a confidential report written by China Anti-Doping Agency and used in the 2021 sweep of 23 swimmers and submitted to World Anti-Doping at the time mechanism.
China argued in the report that the 23 swimmers were unknowingly contaminated with a heart drug that was somehow present in meals prepared for them at domestic competitions. The theory is based on the fact that two months after testing positive, Chinese investigators found trace amounts of the drug trimetazidine (TMZ) in the kitchen of the hotel where the swimmers were staying.
TMZ, which can help athletes improve their strength and endurance and speed up recovery times, belongs to a class of performance-enhancing drugs that carry some of the harshest penalties.
To support the argument that contamination is indeed possible, the Chinese documents cite other “mass incidents” in which 12 Chinese water polo players and 13 other athletes were unknowingly contaminated with banned substances by consuming food. China said that among these earlier cases were incidents in 2016 and 2017 in which three top swimmers tested positive for clenbuterol.
But in citing these early cases, the Chinese have only raised more questions about their history of handling positive tests.
Under the protocols in place for such testing at the time, China and WADA were still required to disclose the athlete’s identity and investigate the source of the contamination, even if the results were thought to be caused by meat contamination. There is no indication that these steps were followed in any of the cases documented by the Chinese.
Clenbuterol has been popular with athletes for years because it can reduce weight and promote muscle growth. Because of its effectiveness in enhancing athletic performance, the World Anti-Doping Agency classifies it as a Schedule I drug, subject to the most severe penalties, including a four-year ban.
At the same time, it is also used in some parts of the world to promote the growth of livestock. This led to cases of contamination of athletes eating processed animal meat – a phenomenon detailed by China Anti-Doping Agency in a presentation that can still be found on the WADA website.
China Anti-Doping Agency did not respond to questions from The Times.
WADA is supposed to guard against countries that fail to police doping by their athletes, but in 2021 it took Chinese officials at their word that the 23 swimmers had done nothing wrong. It did not conduct its own investigation in China and allowed China’s anti-doping agency, China Anti-Doping Agency, to sidestep the rules and procedures that other countries are obliged to follow when screening athletes.
The World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA) inaction, citing coronavirus restrictions, paves the way for China to send 23 swimmers to the 2021 Summer Olympics, with a team nearly half made up of athletes who have tested positive for the virus. composition. At this Olympics, Chinese swimmers who tested positive won medals in five events, including three gold medals.
After the incident came to light, both the World Anti-Doping Agency and swimming’s governing body announced reviews of the handling of the case. But this only raises new concerns. WADA has been criticized by athletes and coaches and has been forced to respond to allegations that its handpicked prosecutors lack independence. Meanwhile, World Aquatics faces accusations from a member of its anti-doping advisory group that he was “inexplicably forcibly excluded from review”.
Amid the outcry, WADA officials tried to defend themselves in a series of public and private briefings, including conference calls with reporters, forums with hundreds of athletes and hurried discussions with their own board members. Scheduled video calls.
During one such conference call, WADA general counsel Ross Wenzel looked directly into a computer camera and told board members that the Chinese swimmers were not doping.
While it’s unclear how much Mr. Wenzel knew about the details in the China Swimming Association’s report, which was shared with WADA, he and other agency officials have repeatedly backed their efforts to clear swimmers with a powerful statistic The decision: None of the Chinese swimmers, Mr Wenzel told board members, had tested positive for doping in the three years before the 2021 incident despite “subjecting significant, if not massive, testing” .
Wenzel did not disclose the swimmers’ doping records prior to 2018 at meetings in April and early May. The three swimmers have been cleared of doping records.
China even named these three athletes in its report: Wang Shun, who became the second Chinese man to win an individual swimming gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics; Chinese men who won the gold medal; Qin Haiyang, the current world record holder in the men’s 200m breaststroke; Yang Junxuan was only 14 or 15 years old when he tested positive in 2017, but went on to win gold and silver medals at the Tokyo Olympics.
In April, Yang set a Chinese national record in the women’s 100-meter freestyle competition.
As WADA noted in a statement on Friday, the issue of positive clenbuterol contamination eventually became so common that WADA changed its guidance in 2019: The drug will still be banned and considered a category subject to the harshest penalties, but a positive outcome was proposed.
Nonetheless, under WADA’s rules and procedures at the time, athletes claiming to be contaminated with clenbuterol had to identify the source of the contaminated food they were eating and obtain evidence that it was indeed contaminated. This is a high bar and many athletes fail to meet it – often resulting in multi-year bans.
However, even if Chinese athletes can prove contamination, WADA rules require China Anti-Doping Agency to publicly disclose their positive test results, under rules established in 2016 and 2017. If an athlete tests positive during competition, their results should be removed from official records.
However, in the case of the three Chinese swimmers, there is no indication that the Chinese Anti-Doping Agency complied with these rules, and there is nothing in public records to indicate that these athletes tested positive.
Their positive tests in 2016 and 2017 came as China faced earlier accusations of doping by swimmers with impunity, according to China’s timeline.
In 2016, The Times of London quoted Chinese whistleblowers as saying that Chinese authorities covered up five positive doping tests because they wanted to avoid disclosing them ahead of that year’s Summer Olympic trials in Rio de Janeiro.
The day after the Times of London article was published, China’s anti-doping agency publicly admitted that six swimmers had tested positive for banned substances. Three of the positive results occurred six months earlier, in 2015, and were for clenbuterol, the report said. China declined to name other substances or any athletes.
At the time, WADA was embroiled in another scandal involving Russia’s state-backed doping program. It responded immediately, calling the accusations of Chinese positivity “very serious” and vowing to deal with the situation “head-on.” But no known formal action has been taken.
Mr Kohler of Global Athlete said the discovery of more hidden positives, and the prospect that some of the athletes involved would compete for medals in Paris, was almost incomprehensible to other Olympians.
“This will take athletes’ confidence in the system to an all-time low, which I don’t think is possible,” he said.
